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Jurassic spider tracks!

You need to include a scale with these images, Riley Black!

Finding fossils depends as much on light and time of day as search image. I’ve walked over this Jurassic sandstone sidewalk slab multiple times over 14 years but only today saw the spider tracks, those clusters of three dots. 🧪

I need to know how many tons a Jurassic spider weighed.

People are irrational by nature » « The army is fast-tracking corruption right into the officer corps

Comments

  3. says

    PZ wrote: I need to know how many tons a Jurassic spider weighed.
    I reply: YES, it will help you design your Army of Giant Mutant magat Killing Spiders! Get on that right now, please.

  4. robro says

    PZ: How many tons would you like your Jurassic spiders to weigh? I would suppose many tons…I mean big lizards need big bugs, right…but I’m not a spider expert.

  5. drsteve says

    I’ve been rewatching the Doctor Who story Planet of the Spiders, and I can tell you that the effects of Metebelis 3 crystals would enable spiders to grow to indefinitely large size and transform them into a social species with a Queen, aside from granting them human speech and magical powers to use to dominate us Two-Legs.

  7. Robbo says

    @1
    Oh, yeah, an African Jurassic spider maybe, but not a European Jurassic spider

  9. says

    Riley needs more than a scale. They need a good close up shot and some comparative analysis to link them to spiders. Actual spider tracks I’ve seen don’t look like those although the appearance would depend on the spider that made them. For comparison here is a link to a photo of a Devonian eurypterid trackway from Mutawintji National Park in western New South Wales. Back then sea-scorpions were pretty frightening creatures. https://margruss.incoll.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/20170719-4083-400-Million-Year-Old-Scorpion-Track-Med.jpg

  10. Rich Woods says

    @drsteve #5:

    A social species with an insane, megalomaniacal queen.

    (That story gave me nightmares when I was a kid.)

  11. StevoR says

    Sign in required to see the linked post on the OP’s Riley Black BlueSky link. Couldn’t see it since I’m not on BlueSky.

    Still terrific trace fossil find!

    I gather from somewhere that as well as light sometimes adding some water helsp fossils stadn out and become more visible FWIW.

    @1. larpar : African or European Jurassic spider?

    Or Aussie or Asian or American? Depends where Riley Black is / found it which, dunno.

  12. drsteve says

    @Rich Woods, #5

    I can well believe it! It’s a very intense story but in a dreamlike way.

    Having first seen it as an adult, my main impressions are that the script is a hot mess of almost if not quite entirely random elements that barely hold together, but the spiders themselves are just fantastic as Classic Doctor Who monsters go: 5 quid worth of practical effects + some great vocal performances + a dash of voice modulation = top tier villains with personality to spare.

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